Elijah Williams
A Russian Soyuz ferry undocked from the International Space Station and flew back to Earth Saturday morning, bringing a Russian cosmonaut, a Belarusian passenger and a NASA astronaut for a perfect landing on the steppes of Kazakhstan.
Soyuz MS-24/70S commander Oleg Novitskiy, flanked on the left by Marina Vasilevskaya of Belarus and on the right by NASA astronaut Loral O’Hara, touched down about 90 miles east of the city of Dzhezkazgan at 3:17 a.m. EDT.
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Russian recovery teams arrived on the scene within minutes to help the station’s pilots out of their cramped Soyuz descent module as they began to readjust to the pull of gravity.
For veteran Novitskiy and Vasilevskaya, who is flying for the first time, reacclimatization should be relatively easy. They released on March 23 aboard the Soyuz MS-25/71S spacecraft along with NASA astronaut Tracy Dyson and docked at the station two days later.
Spending just two weeks aboard the station, they returned to Earth aboard the former Soyuz MS-24 spacecraft that transported station commander Oleg Kononenko, Nikolai Chub and O’Hara to the laboratory complex last September.
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Kononenko and Chub are in the middle of a year-long stay in space. They plan to return to Earth next September, together with Dyson, using the new MS-25 spacecraft delivered by Novitskiy. Novitskiy and Vasilevskaya brought O’Hara back to Earth aboard the old ferry she released last September.
With the landing, O’Hara logged 204 days away from the planet, completing 3,264 orbits covering 86.6 million miles. She also participated in a six hour and 42 minute spacewalk. Novitskiy and Vasilevskya spent 14 days in space, covering 224 orbits and 9.5 million miles.
All three appeared healthy and in good spirits as they rested in recliners near their charred Soyuz descent capsule, attended to by support personnel.
NASA/Bill Ingalls
“I am overcome with emotions,” Vasilevskaya said, speaking through a translator on NASA TV. “It’s something incredible. I wish that every person on Earth appreciates and appreciates what they have, because it is precious.
“I thank all the people of Belarus,” she continued. “We actually wanted to stay a little longer, but it’s great to be back. It was amazing to be on board the station.”
Vasilevskaya, a talented ballroom dancer and Belavia Airlines flight attendant, is the first citizen of Belarus, a staunch ally of Russia, to fly in space since the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
Although relations between the United States and Russia remain at or near Cold War levels, the two nations continue to cooperate in space, jointly operating the International Space Station.
For her part, Dyson said before the launch that she enjoyed training with Vasilevskaya, adding “it was a real pleasure working with her”.
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After brief medical examinations and satellite calls to family and friends, the trio would be flown by helicopter to Karaganda. From there, O’Hara will head home to Houston aboard a NASA jet, while Novitskiy and Vasilevskaya will fly back to Star City, near Moscow.
Left behind in space were ISS commander Kononenko, Chub, Dyson, cosmonaut Alexander Grebenkin and NASA astronauts Matthew Dominick, Michael Barratt and Jeanette Epps.
O’Hara’s return to Earth completed a complex sequence of flights to replace five of the space station’s seven long-term crew members.
NASA launched for the first time Dominick, Barratt, Epps and Grebenkin headed to the station on March 3 aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft. They replaced four other pilots who returned to Earth aboard another Crew Dragon.
That cleared the way for Novitskiy, Vasilevskaya and Dyson to launch, delivering a new Soyuz and the NASA veteran to the station and then bringing O’Hara back to Earth.
